The Son of Neptune
by toSempiternity
Summary: Takes place after the second preview. Percy and his newly-found friends, Hazel and Frank must take a quest to free Death, and more importantly, stop the Feast of Fortune before Gaea's army can raise her once and for all, dooming the Earth to destruction.
1. I: PERCY

**I  
><strong>_Percy_

"Where would you like me to drop you off?" Percy asked the old lady who was on his back. To his surprise, June had disappeared. The Panda Pillow-Pet he had acquired was gone as well.

"Hippy ladies," he muttered. Yes, she had taken his Pillow-Pet! How dare she? But Percy had other things to worry about. He noticed that as soon as one of the guards came rushing over and stuck a point of a black iron sword under his chin. The other guard ran over as well and he slipped behind Percy, a arrow loaded onto a mahogany bow, pointed straight towards Percy's neck.

The guard who had her sword at Percy's throat shrugged off her helmet where it landed with a clatter on the asphalt. She had extremely dark blue eyes, raven-black hair, and a guarded expression on her face. "Who are you, boy?"

Percy glanced down at the sword that was digging into his throat, although there was just a slight pressure that was applied from the point. "I don't know," he truthfully said. He saw no point in hiding anything, so he just poured out all the memories he had.

"My name is Percy Jackson," he said, remembering the name that one of the gorgons had told him he was. "I don't really remember anything else."

The girl arched an eyebrow. "Percy Jackson," she said, her voice like ice. "Interesting name."

"Um, yeah," Percy whispered, eying the blade of the sword with some degree of annoyance. "But I think that I do remember one person from my past...this girl with blond hair and gray eyes."

The girl waited and lowered her sword. "Well?" she prompted. "Who's this 'girl' you're talking about, Percy Jackson?"

"Annabeth," he said. As mentioned before, he didn't see any point to hide his memories. He only had two, anyways.

She clicked her fingers at the other guard, who lowered his or her bow and arrow. She turned her attention back to Percy. "Hazel Wright," she supplied, holding out her hand. "And no, I'm not a descendant of the Wright brothers."

Percy nodded and turned to the boy, who had taken of his helmet. "Frank Duran." He smiled. "I'm guessing that you're a demigod. You didn't seem to be fooled by the Mist."

"Demigod? Mist?" Percy asked, confused. Those words gave him a massive brain freeze; it was as if he knew the words but something, or _someone_ had taken away his memories.

Hazel and Frank exchanged a glance. "We better take you to Lupa," they both said tersely. Percy's eyebrows scrunched together. "I already saw her. She told me to use my senses or something like that. Then, she said vaguely said something about this camp called 'Camp Jupiter.'"

"Percy," Frank smirked, "you came to the right place. If you already met Lupa, come on and meet the Legion Camp."

Hazel caught his shoulder and looked at him seriously. "Most of the campers won't be as nice to you as we were," she said. "Just keep a cool head and ignore any sarcastic remarks that are thrown at you. They're trying to unbalance you. Don't let them do it." She gave me a sly smile and then murmured something under her breath. She placed her hand on the wall, and where skin met brick, a glowing golden eagle with the big block letters **SPQR** emblazoned on it appeared. A door that Percy could swear had not been there a moment before silently slid open and admitted him into a long corridor.

"C'mon," Frank invited again. "Let's go."

Percy took one last uncertain glance at the world behind him and nervously followed Frank into the tunnel. Hazel winked, shot him with a finger gun, and resumed her position at the front of the entrance, which sealed itself behind them. No escaping now.

"So," Frank said, attempting to make small talk. "You can't remember anything, eh? No problem. We'll fix ya right up!"

Percy managed a weak grin. "Thanks. But Hazel mentioned something about the campers...not being as nice as you guys were."

Frank's smile melted off his face. It was replaced with a weary expression. "Percy...Camp Jupiter isn't exactly known for its 'niceness.' We're trained to become warriors, skilled fighters who can take on any challenge. To prove yourself worthy to the camp, you have a Colosseum brawl with the Praetors of each of the legions. There are seven legions total, the Seventh being the worst, and the First being the absolute best. When you get knocked out by the Praetor of, say, the Fourth Legion, you stay in the Fourth Legion. You can work your way up, though. That's what happened to everybody in the First Legion but Jason—"

His face darkened. "Anyways, me and Hazel, we're both in the First Legion. My dad is Mars—"

"Ares," Percy corrected. He blinked. He had no idea where that came from.

Frank arched an eyebrow. "Ares? That's the Greek counterpart. We usually don't use the Grecian names of the Olympian gods. They've died out, but the Roman gods are still living, like Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva—their faded Grecian names are Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena. So, Percy, use the Roman names. Besides, most of the campers would kill you as soon as you uttered 'Zeus.' And trust me, when my half-siblings catch you saying that...well, let's just say that there's always a really bloody fight that usually always results in a fatality of the new camper."

"Ah," Percy gulped. "Nice camp."

Frank smiled. "Yep. Oh, and here we are. Camp Jupiter in its full glory."

Percy stared across the camp in awe. "Wow," he whispered.

There were seven long complexes at the end of the green, each of them having a flag with a number stitched on it, like "1", "2", "3", etc. Occasionally, little figures entered and exited the compounds. They were all wearing armor.

There was a large pit in front of the buildings where a bunch of tables were loitering around, cluttering the already small space. However, it was roofless, and Percy asked, "That pit. Is that the mess hall or something?"

"Yeah," Frank said. "It doesn't have a roof because this camp is weather controlled. Only Lupa decides whether or not rain, snow, sleet—pretty much any type of weather—can enter the camp."

"Oh."

Frank laughed. "I was confused too when I first came to camp. Don't worry, kid, it's natural. Everybody who comes here feels a bit out of place at first, but you'll soon blend in with the other campers. I'll give you a tour around camp. But whatever you do, ignore everybody. Hazel told you this, right?"

Percy nodded, but then asked, "Does that mean that I have gotta ignore you?"

Frank smirked. "Tours are always boring, so you can blot out my words and just take in the view."

"Hey, Frankie!" somebody called from across the green. Frank scowled and Percy noticed that he obviously did not like being called "Frankie". He could hardly blame the son of Mars; he would hate it if somebody called him...Perseus. Okay, where in Styx did that name come from? It was totally out of the blue.

"What do you want, Aaron?" Frank asked the boy who had just appeared in front of them. The boy was tall, at least having a three-inch difference between Percy and Frank, who were about the same height. He was shirtless, which Percy thought was quite unnecessary, and was totally ripped. He had a deep six-pack and huge muscles that could rival Hercules'.

Aaron's gaze drifted towards Percy and he sneered. "Well, well, Frank...a newbie."

"Don't even think about it, Smith!" Frank hissed, putting himself between Percy and Aaron. "Shut your trap up! Lupa and Reyna will have you hide if you do anything rash!"

"Exactly," a cold female voice agreed. Percy's heart almost stopped when the girl, Reyna appeared out of nowhere, her gray eyes fixed on Aaron, who backed away. Reyna looked so familiar—like a person who was important to him in his past: _Annabeth_.

"Back to your quarters," Reyna ordered. "No buts, ands, or ifs. Go!"

Aaron retreated, throwing one last glare over his shoulder.

Reyna nodded coolly at Frank. "You are dismissed."

Frank bowed and hastily walked away, shooting a look over his shoulder at Percy that said, _Catch you later_.

Reyna turned her full attention to Percy, studying him as if he were a complicated machine that she couldn't wait to take apart. "Well, then. Another new camper." She sounded tired and resigned, as if she had to go through this every single day. "Who are you?"

"Percy Jackson," he said. "I don't have any memories except for a girl's name. Annabeth."

Reyna narrowed her eyes at him and she proceeded to start walking around him, inspecting every single inch. It made Percy feel self-conscious. "Nothing else?" she mused. "Seems like you have a severe case of amnesia."

Her eyes lighted on his pocket and in one swift, fluid motion, she reached in and brought out a ballpoint pen and a clay bead necklace.

"Yes," she whispered. "Interesting. What's the pen for?"

Percy frowned as Reyna turned it over and grimly smiled. "We don't often see Ancient Greek in here, but it seems that you have some letters inscribed on your pen that is in that exact language, Percy Jackson. _Anaklusmos_, translates into Riptide. What is it? It's most certainly not a tide that opposes another or other tides, causing a violent disturbance in the sea."

Percy gaped at her. "Did you memorize the dictionary or something? I don't even know the definition of that, and it's in my jeans pocket!"

Reyna uncapped it, and her eyebrows shot up as it extended into a glowing bronze sword, the hilt riveted with gold studs and a leather wrap around it. "Three feet long. You're unusual," she admitted. "I haven't seen this metal in ages. It's extremely rare, even more rare than Imperial Gold. Where did you acquire a sword that is fashioned out of Celestial Bronze?"

"Like I said," Percy muttered, "I don't remember anything but my name and the other girl's name."

Reyna peered at him closely but didn't say anything. She turned her full attention to the necklace. "There are four beads on here...where do you assume that you got this?"

Percy tried to access the vaults of his memory and found them hopelessly, spotlessly bare. "Really, I don't know. I assumption is that I got it from some store or whatever."

"No!" Reyna snapped. "Arts and Crafts stores don't sell anything like this!" Her hand clenched around the necklace. "Are you a son of Neptune?"

"Am I a _what_?" Percy asked, flabbergasted. "Son of Neptune? Isn't that Po—" He suddenly remembered Frank warning him about not saying the Greek names around here. "Um, never mind."

Reyna shot a look at him but didn't press the matter. She dangled the necklace in front of him. "Percy, tell me exactly what you see on here. Tell me what are on the beads."

"Well," Percy said, looking closely at the beads, "there's a picture of a miniature building on one of them with some weird letter surrounding it in a spiral—"

"The Empire State Building," Reyna said. "The letters are in Ancient Greek, as your pen."

"There's another one with this weird maze-ish thing on it—"

"The Labyrinth," Reyna clarified.

Percy continued. "A big, fuzzy golden bath mat on another—"

Reyna sighed. "You really do need some training. It's the Golden Fleece, Jackson."

Percy shrugged. "Okay, and the last one is pitch-black with a green spear with three points in the middle. So?"

"So?" Reyna asked, tossing the necklace back to him. "It's a trident, you dimwit. The symbol of Neptune, Lord of the Seas, Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. I think that you're a son of Neptune, Percy. Which isn't a good sign, considering that Jason..." Her voice faltered when she said "Jason", very much like Frank's had, but she recomposed herself and continued. "That Jason disappeared. He was a son of Jupiter."

"Jupiter..." Percy stared off into the distance, lost in thought. "Who is he? Zeus?"

Reyna frowned, her eyes flashing dangerously. "Why do you like Greek names of the gods? They've died off. Only the Roman gods exist now."

Percy nodded uncertainly, although he wasn't entirely sure if that was true. "Right."

Reyna handed him back his sword and the cap of the pen. "I don't know how to change this weapon into pen form," she said. "You have got to be assessed. Be ready in an hour; I'll be waiting for you in the Colosseum."

She indicated towards a large building that looked exactly like the Colosseum in Rome, without the huge chunk of stone taken out of it. Percy wasn't sure how he knew that, but he accepted the image. "Frank told me that the Praetors from—"

Reyna smiled mirthfully. "Yes, that's true. I've got to go, Percy. Remember, one hour, and you come to the Colosseum." She glanced at a wristwatch. "Precisely 3:27 p.m. sharp."

She jogged off towards the Colosseum, leaving a dumbstruck Percy behind her.

"She's been like that ever since Jason disappeared," a voice quietly said behind him. Percy turned around to find Hazel and Frank giving him identical smirks. "Jason," Percy said. "I've heard that name three times now. Who is he?"

Hazel and Frank exchanged a terse glance and Hazel uncertainly said, "He was the Praetor of the First Legion."

"Was," Percy noted.

"Then, he disappeared about three months ago. Nobody knows where he went, and if Lupa does, she didn't tell any of us. Reyna took over as the temporary Praetor of the First Legion."

"Oh," Percy said absently. "So why was Reyna acting so brief and brisk?"

Frank squirmed. "Um, they were dating after the Second Titan War."

"Dating?" Percy asked, bemused. "Second Titan War?"

Hazel shrugged. "Saturn, the Lord of Time and basically the ruler of all these beings called Titans tried to make a comeback last summer. While he assaulted Mount Olympus, the gods held him back while we demigods confronted Krios, Titan Lord of the South and Constellations. Eventually, Jason sent Krios back to Tartarus and toppled Saturn's black throne. At about the same time, the Olympians sent Saturn to Tartarus."

Percy frowned. "No...that's not right," he muttered. "The Olympians didn't fight Kronos. They fought Typhon. I..."

Frank glanced at him. "Yeah?"

Percy looked frustrated. "It just evades me every time I think about it! I can't grasp the memory directly, but I remember that there was a lot of chaos and Annabeth."

Hazel sighed. "Well, that's good. At least a tiny bit of your memory already came back."

But Percy was staring in the distance, lost in thought. Frank placed a firm hand on Percy's shoulder. "Hey, Percy, let's start training with you before Reyna orders that Colosseum brawl. You need all of it you can get."

Percy eyed him strangely. "Is that against the rules?"

Hazel didn't smile. "No. So let's start before the Praetors kick the living lights out of you. They're not afraid to do that."


	2. II: PERCY

**II  
><strong>_Percy_

Hazel wiped a bead of sweat off her brow. "I think that you're actually pretty much ready for the assessment," she panted. "You're gonna surprise everyone with your fighting style and skill, Percy...I've never seen anybody fight that way before. Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

She stared at Percy, who looked as fresh as ever; he wasn't even sweating. Percy shrugged self-consciously. "It's just instinct," he said. "Even I don't know how I managed to disarm you so many times."

Hazel crookedly smirked. "Your instinct saved your life. May the gods be with you, Percy. Frank and I will be watching. And don't have that look on your face; the matches are usually not fatal. Of course, there's an emphasis on usually."

Percy smiled nervously back and jogged for the Colosseum, waving at the two demigods. Reyna didn't seem like the person he wanted to anger, so he figured that he had better be on time if he wanted to get out of this test alive.

In fact, she was right there in the Colosseum, behind a set of heavy looking gold gates, impatiently tapping her foot. "You're late," she accused. "By three minutes and thirty-seven seconds."

Percy blinked. "Uh...do you really keep track of how late everybody is that accurately?"

Reyna scowled at him. "Part of legion training is being strictly on time for every battle practice. If you're late, you suffer the consequences."

"Er...consequences because you're late for a lesson?" Percy was becoming more and more confused. He was pretty sure that where ever he came from, that place was most certainly not as strict as this 'Camp Jupiter' was.

Reyna sharply turned around. "Time to start, Jackson. I hope that you're prepared for the brawl."

With that happy note, Reyna stalked off, yelling something in Latin. Percy stared after her and muttered, "_Braccas mes vescemi._" He had no idea where the Latin came from, and he was sure that he said that before to an old leathery woman with bat wings and a paisley handbag. Why did he just tell Reyna to eat his pants, anyways?

Percy jumped as a loud gong boomed across the whole camp. Within seconds of the huge noise, demigods in gold armor began streaming in, murmuring amongst themselves and eventually settling down in different sections of the Colosseum stands. Percy saw a red banner with the words "FIRST LEGION" sewn in gold onto it in Latin and spotted Hazel and Frank, who were both talking to a girl with auburn-colored hair. The mystery girl seemed to be smirking as Hazel started scowling at her, and she completely ignored the girl later on.

Talking immediately ceased as the chocolaty-red wolf, Lupa bounded into the middle of the dirt floor of the arena and howled, the chilling sound rippling throughout the Colosseum. Lupa flicked her ears and growled, _We have a new pup today. He shall go through the traditional assessment that every demigod must pass to enter our camp. Percy Jackson! You must fight the Praetors of all the legions at Camp Jupiter. Whichever Praetor defeats you shall be the legion you are in.  
><em>

Lupa slunk off into the shadows as the gates creaked up, admitting Percy into the Colosseum.

If there had been crickets in the arena, they would have been the loudest thing in there because everybody was taking in the physical appearance of the new camper. Percy glanced towards Frank, who gave him a subtle thumbs-up. Hazel rolled her eyes and Frank suddenly gasped, his eyes bugging out as he slapped at the ground. He started furiously berating Hazel, who was now silently laughing her head off. Everybody in the Colosseum turned to view Hazel and Frank until Lupa gave a menacing growl. _Begin!_

Another set of doors were slowly pulled up at the other end of the arena and a guy with a sword charged out, uttering a raucous battle cry. Percy almost laughed out loud as the boy swung at him. Percy's wrist flicked up, easily deflecting the other strike that was thrown at him as if he was swinging a flyswatter at an inanimate object.

Percy went into a series of quick jabs and slashes, driving the astounded boy back, step by step. With a final jab, he hooked the hilt of his opponent's blade with his own and twisted. The sword clattered to the ground, leaving the boy defenseless. Percy's sword, Riptide was pressed against the boy's throat.

And so it continued, Percy defeating the Praetors one by one and the crowd getting louder and louder, eventually reaching the point when you would think that a hydrogen bomb had exploded in the middle of the Colosseum. By the time Percy had won with his sword pressed to the Second Legion's Praetor, some girl called Amber, everybody in the crowd was screaming their head off, cheering and stomping their feet. This obviously didn't happen too often; a new camper making his way up to fight the Praetor of the First Legion. In fact, when Percy glanced towards the gates where Reyna was standing, she was glowering at him, her stormy-gray eyes threatening to explode into a full-gale lightning storm.

_Silence!_ Lupa snarled. Once again, the Colosseum was more silent than the dark side of the moon. _Perseus Jackson, if you win the fight against the Praetor of the First Legion, you shall become Consul._

There was a collective gasp around the Colosseum. Reyna's face remained impassive, but her eyes narrowed dangerously at Percy, suggesting that he'd better fail in a really spectacular way or there would be Hades—er, Pluto—to pay.

The bronze gong sounded, and Percy scrutinized his opponent. Reyna glared at him, not moving a muscle. As far as Percy knew, she wasn't even breathing. How she managed to do that if she had ADHD, which he had heard from Frank that she had, Percy had no idea. He knew that he couldn't stay still for five seconds.

As quick as lightning, Percy charged her, his sword poised in an offensive position. Reyna smirked and a sword that literally appeared out of nowhere blocked Percy's first swing. Brilliant technique; as well as a flexible wrist. Every single time Percy was sure that his sword would at least make a small cut, he found his strike blocked by that Imperial Gold blade, minimal amounts of sparks flashing where bronze hit gold.

Percy got increasingly frustrated as he played relentless offense while Reyna went with cool defense. The crowd was howling, screaming for blood. Percy vaguely wondered how long the fight had been going on while he slashed at Reyna, who obviously blocked it.

_Come on, Seaweed Brain,_ an extremely familiar voice quietly chided. _You can do it...I know you can. Don't fight with force..._

Another voice, one that sounded like a bleat of a goat: _Just think, Perce! You can share a Coca-Cola tin can with me after you beat her!_ That wasn't exactly motivating Percy, but it gave him a massive brain freeze, as if the names of the people whispering in his brain should have been in the exact same place.

A sneering voice accessed his mind. _Prissy, all you have to do is tire her out and then you can lop her head off._ Somebody from his past was pretty violent.

_C'mon, Fish Breath..._ a teasing voice remarked. _Hurry up and disarm her or else we'll set the Ares cabin on fire again. You know how much we disagree on everything._

Then, while he wasn't paying attention, Reyna swung at him with her blade. Percy didn't even have time to look up before it hit his neck.

The crowd gave a collective gasp as Reyna tensed. She had obviously not meant to hit him on the jugular vein, but it didn't matter because her sword had bounced off his skin like it was solid iron, just as the gorgons' fangs had.

"You bathed in the River Styx," she hissed. "Now, how am I supposed to defeat you?"

"I bathed in the _what_?" Percy asked, confused. "What's the River Styx?"

Reyna scowled at him. "You're invulnerable, except for one mortal point that ties you to life on Earth. You don't remember where your Achilles' spot is, and if I accidentally hit it, you immediately die. Which basically means that you're Consul of the First Legion now."

Lupa padded forwards. _This match is over. I now declare Perseus Jackson, son of Neptune as temporary Consul to demigods of Camp Jupiter...as Jason Grace has disappeared._

"Grace," Percy absently said. "As in...?" Who was that girl again? He had a feeling that she was the same person who said the last phrase during his battle with Reyna.

Lupa's head whipped towards him and she was on him in an instant, her claws sliding out and slicing straight through his armor. _You will not utter a word about her again, Consul. Your Achilles' Curse is fading, and by the end of the week will be gone completely. Again, I strongly suggest that you do not breath a word about her until the summer solstice._

Why was Lupa so agitated? Percy thought, confused yet again. All he had said was a name he remembered from his past. Percy thought that the girl had turned into a shrub or something along the lines of that.

The crowd was yelling, Reyna staring down at him as if he were a leech that had gotten stuck on her arm. Judging by the look on her face, it had happened to her before.

Lupa got off of him and snapped, _Dismissed._

Somebody from under another red banner that said "FIFTH LEGION" in Latin called, "Will he be getting a tattoo?"

Lupa growled without turning around, _No_._ I don't expect to hear anything more from you, unless you would like to be whipped again._

The boy gulped and hurried out of the stadium with his fellow legionaries chortling behind his back.

The gates burst open and Hazel came rushing out of it, closely followed by Frank. "Son of Neptune?" she asked, flabbergasted. "How are you a son of Neptune?"

Frank was staring at him as well. "Percy...how did you survive on your own? A child of the Big Three, especially one that's your age definitely wouldn't have survived on their own."

He glanced at Hazel, who shrugged. "Hey, don't look at me; Pluto claimed me after I got to camp."

"The god of the Underworld?" Percy guessed. Hazel ruefully rolled her eyes. "Not the best father. He's kinda...sour to everybody he sees except for his _lovely_ wife, Proserpina." She spat out the last word as if it were poison.

"DIi she turn you into a dandelion or anything?" Percy asked, again, not sure where that came from.

Hazel scowled again. "She came darn close to it! Why?"

Percy thought for a moment, coming up with the image of a boy with dark brown eyes and tousled black hair. "Nothing," he muttered. "Not important."

"What I'm worried about," Frank cut in, "is how in the name of Pluto did you survive on your own? There were only two children of the Big Three before, Jason and Hazel."

Percy frowned and scratched his head. "No, that's not right...there were three other kids of the elder gods. I think one of them, a girl, died, and she had a brother who is still alive...and the other child, I think that she's a plant or something."

Hazel raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Interesting story. Are you sure you aren't hallucinating about them?"


	3. III: HAZEL

**III  
><strong>_Hazel_

After hearing Percy rant about some supposedly imaginary kids about the Big Three, Hazel didn't think her life could get any more random. Yeah, you're a demigod for a while, you get used to weird stuff like demon lady grandmothers attacking you, big furry not-so-nice doggies trying to claw you to death...that sort of stuff. She was proven wrong a second later when Lupa trotted up to her. _Meeting in the council room in five minutes._

Hazel's mouth dropped open. Usually, Lupa announced that there would be a council meeting a week in advance or such, and _never_ on short notice. And yet, here she was, being told that she has got to be at the war council within five minutes. That should have served as a warning to what crazy things were about to happen next.

First, it was Reyna scampering across the field, yammering something about Jason Grace, her lost boyfriend. Now, as Hazel had known that Jason and Reyna had liked each other for years, so this wouldn't have been surprising to her at all—if circumstances were normal, that is. Nowadays, circumstances were _never_ normal; short-notice war councils, the Praetor of the First Legion disappearing, an amnesic son of the sea god appearing three months after the son of Jupiter had disappeared...really weird, even for the life of a demigod.

The point being, Reyna had barely breathed a word about Jason since he disappeared three months ago; she seemed resigned to the fact that he had disappeared and will never return. Even possibly dead. Hazel had been planning to tell Reyna about her dream that she had had about a week ago, but she had never gotten the chance. New demigods had been randomly popping around all over the country, and Reyna already had her plate full with technically running Camp Jupiter since Lupa only guides the demigods...not to mention Jason being gone, setting the assessments for the new campers, and organizing the daily patrols around the perimeter of the camp. Oh, and not to mention prepping legion training activities a month in advance.

But Hazel had caught Reyna outside one night, harnessing some pegasi to a chariot. So was Reyna really giving up on Jason, or was she making some little midnight rides to search for him? Come to think of it, Hazel thought that Reyna looked really tired for the past couple of weeks.

But when she had criticized Percy about there being more children of the Big Three, she was secretly freaking out inside. The dream she had, she was sure that she had caught a glimpse of Jason talking with a girl who literally looked like Reyna's nicer twin. There was a guy with dark brown eyes and black hair interjecting from time to time who kind of looked like Hazel, but she had seen no mention of the girl who turned into a plant, unless the girl's name was "Thalia". Of course, Percy had said that she was probably still a plant, so Hazel shouldn't be expecting too much. This boy, an amnesiac demigod who had appeared out of nowhere in the camp's territory, carrying an old hippy lady on his back who mysteriously disappeared as soon as he set foot within the proximity of the Caldecott Tunnel's shadow, claimed to have knowledge of more kids of the Big Three.

In her dream, the boy who looked like her had said, "You know how longer the ship is gonna take to build? I think that Annabeth's gonna blow if she can't see him within two hours."

The blond girl had hit him around the head after he said that statement, whom Hazel assumed was Annabeth.

The blond Jason guy shook his head and laughed. "Nah...Leo's been really secretive about it."

Annabeth scoffed. "Like he even knows; even with that tool belt of his and the whole camp helping...it's going to take at least another two months. You know how he likes Thalia?"

The blond guy stifled another laugh. "Annabeth...he was trying to flirt with her when we met her on Pikes Peak. You know what he said? He was trying to reassure me: _'Nah, we were absolutely—'_"

Annabeth smirked. "Yes...Piper told me. She said that you told her."

"So yes, I know how he has a crush on her. And I'll bet that she knew it, too."

The dark-haired boy chuckled, and the dream had turned to blackness. Hazel had jolted awake in her bunk, yelling about the conversation and generally waking up the First Legion, if not the whole camp. Hazel was sure that Reyna had been a millisecond away from killing her.

Frank nudged her lightly. Hazel blinked, jostled out of her memories. "Oh, right...I was in the middle of asking a question, right?"

Percy weakly chuckled. "Uh...you were berating me about the imaginary children of the Big Three, right?"

Hazel rolled her eyes. "No time for that right now; Lupa called a war council meeting, and you know how she is when we're late."

"I do?" Percy asked faintly. Hazel barely suppressed a roll of her eyes. Pluto was right; children of Neptune had seaweed for brains.

* * *

><p><em>Now<em>, Lupa growled, _many of you might be wondering why I called you here on such short notice._

If there had been crickets chirping outside, Hazel was sure that the bugs would have been the loudest thing in the room.

Lupa got right to the point and bluntly growled, _Death has been captured._

The council burst into instant pandemonium. Sodas, Cheese Whiz, and grapes were flying everywhere as all the Praetors began taking sides, yelling and screaming and accusing each others godly parents of entombing Death.

Lupa wrapped her tail around her paws and just sat there, not attempting to calm down the unruly crowd. Hazel understood why a second later as Octavian calmly sliced open a teddy bear in the shadows. He intently studied the stuffing that spilled out of the stuffed animal and shot a glance at Percy.

Hazel pushed her way towards him. "What now?"

Octavian stared at her and said in a whisper, "Bring Perseus Jackson and Frank Zhang here. It's time that I had a talk with you three."


End file.
